What's worth streaming in September 2024: 'Slow Horses,' 'The Penguin' and more

By Mike Murphy

NFL returns to Peacock, Paramount+ and Prime Video, while Netflix rolls out big stars like Nicole Kidman, Kristen Bell and Will Ferrell

As the sun sets on summer, we're all falling back to our normal routines.

And for streaming services, that means shows about spies and superheroes - and price hikes.

That's a mixed bag, of course. Apple's espionage thriller "Slow Horses" returns as one of the best series on TV, while Max's "The Penguin" and Disney's "Agatha After All" are intriguing supervillain spinoffs. But Paramount+ is raising prices right as football season kicks off, on the heels of a similar increase by Peacock before the Olympics. Meanwhile, standbys such as Netflix and Hulu still have a ton to offer, yet their lineups aren't quite as strong as in recent months.

So where to spend your streaming dollar? That's precisely where a strategy of churning - that is, adding and dropping services month to month - comes in. It takes some planning, but pays off in monthly savings. Keep in mind that a billing cycle starts when you sign up, not necessarily at the beginning of the month.

Each month, this column offers tips on how to maximize your streaming and your budget - rating the major services as "play," "pause" or "stop," similar to investment analysts' traditional ratings of buy, hold or sell - and picks the best shows to help you make your monthly decisions.

Here's a look at what's coming to the various streaming services in September 2024, and what's really worth the monthly subscription fee:

Apple TV+ ($9.99 a month)

Apple's (AAPL) lineup for September is not the largest out there, but it is the best.

For starters, the sublime spy series "Slow Horses" (Sept. 4) is back for its fourth season. Gary Oldman returns as the slobbish but brilliant leader of a band of MI5 rejects who somehow manage to always save the day, often despite their best instincts. It's a deliciously entertaining show, smart, thrilling and bitterly funny. It finally broke through with nine well-deserved Emmy nominations this year, with likely more in its future. This season is based on "Spook Street," the fourth book in Mick Herron's bestselling series, with a plot that includes a onetime spymaster with dementia, a terrorist bombing and a mysterious new antagonist (Hugo Weaving).

There's also "Wolfs" (Sept. 20), a breezy action-comedy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as rival professional fixers who are forced to work together. It looks great. So why is an appealing movie with such big stars going straight to streaming? (It'll show in select theaters for a week, which hardly counts.) According to a recent New York Times report, Apple is tired of losing money on its big theatrical releases (like "Killers of the Flower Moon," "Napoleon" and "Fly Me to the Moon") over the past year, and was not confident "Wolfs" would recoup its costs. So by making it an Apple exclusive, it'll lose less money by eliminating sunk costs on theatrical distribution and marketing, and probably drive a few subscriptions as a bonus. It's just a reflection of the weird new state of Hollywood.

Apple also has a pair of intriguing foreign-language series, "La Maison" (Sept. 20), a French drama about a family-run fashion house that's thrown into turmoil, and "Midnight Family" (Sept. 25), a drama about a talented medical student (Renata Vaca) who spends her nights working for her family's private ambulance service in Mexico City.

There's also the end of "Sunny" (finale Sept. 4), the uneven sci-fi mystery that's mostly a study in sadness and loneliness, but with enough twists to maintain interest; weekly episodes of "Bad Monkey," the Florida-set mystery that's more vibe than plot - though in the best way, making it the TV equivalent of a light-but-fun beach read; and new episodes of the recently released second season of "Pachinko," the profoundly moving multi-generational family drama that remains one of the best - and most underwatched - dramas on TV.

Play, pause or stop? Play. With "Slow Horses," "Pachinko" and "Bad Monkey," Apple will have three of the best series currently on TV.

Max ($9.99 a month with ads, $16.99 with no ads, or $20.99 'Ultimate' with no ads)

Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) DC is taking a page from rival Marvel with its synergetic new supervillain series "The Penguin" (Sept. 19). Starring an unrecognizable Colin Farrell as a waddling crime lord seeking to fill a power vacuum in Gotham City, the eight-episode limited series will serve both as a sequel to director Matt Reeves' hit 2022 movie "The Batman," starring Robert Pattinson, and will set up the next Batman movie, due in 2026. While the miniseries will be more of a dark crime drama than a superhero smackdown, don't be surprised if there's a Pattinson cameo (either as Batman or Bruce Wayne) somewhere along the line. (Or not.)

Max also has "Coming From America" (Sept. 5), a docuseries about four Black American families who move to Africa, where they face culture shock and other challenges; the fourth and final season of "My Brilliant Friend" (Sept. 9), the tear-jerking Italian drama about two lifelong friends; "Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos" (Sept. 7), a two-part documentary about the creator of the iconic HBO series, coming on its 25th anniversary; and acclaimed recent movies such as "The Boy and the Heron" (Sept. 6), "Civil War" (Sept. 13) and "I Saw the TV Glow" (Sept. 20).

On the sports front, Max has Major League Baseball games every Tuesday night, Mountain West college football every Saturday, and the U.S. men's soccer team playing New Zealand in a friendly (Sept. 10), which likely will be its second game under new coach Mauricio Pochettino, if that deal is ever finalized.

There'll also be new episodes of the addictive high-finance drama "Industry" (season finale Sept. 29), which was well worth watching even before it started name-dropping MarketWatch this season; and the Brazilian crime-drama sequel "City of God: The Fight Rages On" (finale Sept. 29), which was just renewed for a second season.

Play, pause or stop? Play. "Industry" might be worth a subscription all on its own, but there's plenty more, making that money well spent.

Netflix ($6.99 a month for standard with ads, $15.49 standard with no ads, $22.99 premium with no ads)

It's another month of big names for Netflix (NFLX), which starts with a live chowdown between the two biggest names in competitive eating. "Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef" (3 p.m. Eastern, Sept. 2) will be a live hot-dog-eating contest between the two former Coney Island champs, which came about after Joey Chestnut was banned from Nathan's annual Fourth of July contest after he signed an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods. Kobayashi was in semi-retirement, and the two haven't met in a competition since 2009.

Getting back to shows that are a bit easier to swallow, Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber star in "A Perfect Couple" (Sept. 5), a six-episode murder-mystery series that takes place at a Nantucket wedding, based on Elin Hilderbrand's novel; Part 2 of the fourth season of "Emily in Paris" (Sept. 12), which finds her in Rome, not Paris; "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" (Sept. 19), as Ryan Murphy's true-crime anthology takes on the notorious 1989 murders; "His Three Daughters" (Sept. 20) a movie about estranged sisters reuniting at their father's deathbed, starring Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olson and Carrie Coon; "Will & Harper" (Sept. 27), a documentary from Will Ferrell, who takes a cross-country road trip with a longtime fiend who's come out as a trans woman; and "Nobody Wants This" (Sept. 26), a delightful-looking rom-com series about an agnostic podcaster (Kristen Bell) and an unconventional rabbi (Adam Brody) who fall for each other, because who doesn't want to see Veronica Mars and Seth Cohen finally hook up?

There's also Season 2 of the Alaska survival series "Outlast" (Sept. 4); "Rebel Ridge" (Sept. 6), a movie about an ex-Marine (Aaron Pierre) who's pitted against a corrupt small-town police force that sounds like a spin on "First Blood"; a new season of "Selling Sunset" (Sept. 6); Season 7 of the reality competition series "The Circle" (Sept. 7); "Mr. McMahon" (Sept. 25), a six-part docuseries on the rise and fall of WWE co-founder Vince McMahon; and "Twilight of the Gods" (Sept. 12), a bloody, adult animated series from Zack Snyder based on Norse mythology.

Netflix also announced a date for Ellen DeGeneres's comedy special -supposedly the last one of her career - "For Your Approval" (Sept. 24).

Meanwhile, say goodbye to a great trio of shows from The CW: "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," "iZombie" and "Jane the Virgin" (all leaving Sept 5).

Watch it while you can: Fans of snappy, screwball comedies should go back and discover "Great News," which ran on NBC from 2017-'18 but for some reason was only watched by, like, 11 people at the time. It's a fast-paced joke machine in the vein of "30 Rock" (not a coincidence - it was created by "30 Rock" writer Tracey Wigfield) set at a cable news station, starring Briga Heelan as a put-upon producer, Andrea Martin as her boundary-free mother (who's also an intern at the station), John Michael Higgins as a blowhard anchorman and Nicole Richie in a career-best role as a ditzy newscaster. It's a lighthearted blast that could be a perfect escape during a potentially stressful election season. And at just 23 episodes, at about 22 minutes a pop, it's a quick binge. It's leaving Netflix on Sept. 27, but it should re-emerge on Peacock one of these days (fingers crossed).

Play, pause or stop? Pause and think it over. While nothing quite leaps out yet, something will surely emerge as a hit, and the library is as deep as ever.

Hulu ($7.99 a month with ads, or $17.99 with no ads)

Hulu sure has volume this month. But quality? We'll have to see.

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09-03-24 1954ET

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